Hi Carmen2

I'm a first-timer like you (due in a few days, yikes!) and agree with the others. I think there's way too much emphasis put on what pain relief we may or may not want and nowhere near enough on how we can use different techniques to cope with the pain.

Now as soon as people use words like "techniques to cope with the pain" I imagine aromatherapy burners and CDs with whale music on them which are NOT my cup of tea at all. But I too found Juju Sundin's book really, really useful because there's lots of other stuff in there. You just need to find something that works for you. I was having pre-labour pains yesterday so thought I'd have a bit of a practice so now I know that putting on some music DVDs take my mind off things as I bounce on my fitball pretending I'm a drummer! Whatever works, I reckon!

Bearing in mind that these days a lot of women feel disappointed with their birth especially if they go in intending to go all natural and end up having an epidural/caesarean, she makes the really important point that as long as you belive you've done your best, you can't be disappointed.

So the way I'm approaching it is, I'll give it a red hot go based on her book (and a few other things that I think might help me personally) but if I can't cope then I'll have an epidural without any guilt whatsoever and accept the likelihood of other interventions such as forceps/episiotomy.

You definitely don't need to decide now.